


Lasting Impression

by samariumwriting



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Female My Unit | Byleth, Fluff, Gen, Humor, M/M, Minor Dimitri Alexandre Blaiddyd/Claude von Riegan, Minor My Unit | Byleth/Seteth, Pranks, schemes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-26
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-12 04:15:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29004342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samariumwriting/pseuds/samariumwriting
Summary: Byleth and Claude are reaching the end of their time with their favourite professors. They've both decided that they want to leave an impression.The best way to do that? Schemes.
Relationships: Minor or Background Relationship(s), My Unit | Byleth & Claude von Riegan
Comments: 6
Kudos: 14





	Lasting Impression

**Author's Note:**

> This was a commission for @EldestEagle on twitter! Thank you very much ;-;

As the leaves shed from the trees around campus, it was time to put their plan into action.

It was a pact Byleth made with Claude at the start of that semester; with the credits both of them had left, their time with their favourite professors was drawing to a close. And with both professors having long careers behind them, with countless students passing in and out of their office doors, Byleth and Claude had to make an effort to leave an impression.

The best way to leave an impression? Well.

"Do you think this is enough?" Claude asked, patting his stuffed backpack. Byleth glanced nervously at the way the zip strained; if it burst open as they moved across campus, they'd have a lot of explaining to do.

Within the bag was the first half of the day's activities: a folder full of various images of political scientist Machiavelli, a mug with various quotes written onto it in Claude's sprawling handwriting, a wad of blue tack, a Machiavelli poster, a Machiavelli-printed shirt, a pen holder with more quotes, and (Byleth's personal favourite) a little plasticine figurine that was probably meant to look like Machiavelli. Claude's favourite professor, Hanneman, had an... affinity for the theorist. Perhaps an obsession.

"It'll have to be enough," she answered, hefting her own bag up onto her shoulders. Besides her class materials, her bag contained various hurriedly folded materials to alter her own teacher's room. Manuela was fond of regaling them all about her opera days instead of teaching them about youth development; Byleth knew exactly what she had to do.

"Good point," Claude said, letting out a short laugh as he observed their supplies. "Alright then. Let's go."

They had a plan of action, minutely planned to the last minute (Claude's idea, not Byleth's). Manuela was teaching as they made their way to campus, which meant that they had to go to Hanneman first. He would probably be between his office and the staff kitchen when they arrived (how Claude knew this, exactly, Byleth didn't want to know), which left them with a tiny window of opportunity.

It went like this: first, Claude and Byleth arrived in the corridor. After verifying that Hanneman was not in his office, Claude opened the door and went inside, propping it closed with a chair just for good measure. Second, Byleth stood outside the office door and waited, summoning the sweetest smile she could manage onto her face.

Byleth shot a look into the office just as Hanneman approached, and the sight that met her eyes widened her smile; Claude stood on a chair, his tongue out as he stuck pictures of Machiavelli onto the ceiling. She just needed to buy him a few minutes to get everything sorted.

"Hello," she said as the man approached, "are you Professor Hanneman?" He nodded. "I was interested in taking some of your classes at some point, I have some social sciences credits I need to make up, though my major is in education."

Hanneman's eyes lit up at her words. "Well, you've come to the right place!" he said. "What is it that you'd like to know?"

It was very, very easy to get Hanneman to talk about something he was interested in. Byleth just asked a few very general questions, and did her best to listen as Hanneman tried to tell her how complicated the answers were. He didn't even glance at his office, where Claude was frantically sticking pictures up everywhere. Byleth almost wished she'd get the opportunity to see it all before Hanneman, but it would ruin the element of surprise.

It was all going incredibly well, really, which meant that it was a perfect time for something to go wrong. Just as Byleth caught sight of Claude moving to replace some of the objects on Hanneman's desk, another familiar face appeared at the end of the corridor.

Oh no. She hadn't realised that Seteth was going to be on campus today.

"Oh, Byleth, what a surprise to see you here!" he greeted. There was a familiar smile on his face, but undeniable suspicion in his eyes. "I didn't realise you were interested in political science. At all."

Oops. There was a threat in his tone- not an ominous one, just one that told Byleth that he knew something was going on. Which was fair - he was correct. Byleth had never in her whole life been interested in political science, and especially not the theory-heavy stuff that Hanneman taught.

"I thought it was a good time to develop a broader view," she said cheerily.

Seteth's mouth set in a hard line. "I see." She tried smiling at him again, and his returning one was decidedly suspicious. When Byleth shot a glance over at Hanneman, he looked utterly confused; Byleth couldn't blame him. Seteth was normally so much politer in the presence of authorities, so this was probably the first time he'd seen Seteth be even slightly rude.

She loved bringing things out of Seteth that he didn't normally show. The fact that she got to do it  _ while  _ scheming with Claude was just an extra gift.

It was then that Claude decided to leave the office, a satisfied smile on his face and a much lighter bag on his back. While Hanneman had his back to him, Seteth did not, and the moment he caught sight of Claude, understanding dawned on his face.

Fortunately, he didn't say anything, but he did shoot Byleth a  _ look. _ Combined with the way he raised his eyebrows, Byleth could surmise that he was asking her, very simply, 'what in the name of our good Goddess did you just  _ do?'  _

There was only one way to answer that.

Byleth raised her eyebrows back at him and smiled just as Claude scampered off down the corridor, making his escape without Hanneman catching hide or hair of him. Then, she glanced down at her watch. "Ah, I'm really sorry to cut this short, Professor, but I have to be off. Thank you for the interesting conversation, though!"

Fortunately, Seteth kept quiet as she turned and practically fled down the corridor, hiding the laugh bubbling up in her chest. When she hit the stairs, Claude was just around the corner, nearly doubled over with laughter.

"I cannot believe that worked after Seteth showed up," he said, just about catching his breath as they descended the rest of the stairs and made it out of the building entirely. "Your boyfriend got  _ so  _ close to ruining it, By."

"He wouldn't," she shot back, though it probably  _ had _ been a little touch and go for a moment or two. Seteth was more... keeping her on her toes. Hanneman was too easy to fool. "Besides, you have no way of knowing that  _ your  _ boyfriend wouldn't be exactly the same."

Claude let out a short pfft of laughter.  _ "My  _ boyfriend is nothing like that," he said. "He can tell when something's going on, but he’d only say something if it would hurt someone. What we did was perfectly harmless."

"Sure, sure," she said. "Come on, carry some of the stuff in my bag. This is too heavy."

Claude acquiesced, accepting the various folded pieces of cardboard she pulled out of her bag and loaded up into his arms. They probably looked like fools, crossing campus with so much stuff between them, but then again they probably just looked like theatre students - that was their prepared excuse if anyone from security saw fit to stop them.

They were still perfectly on schedule when they reached the education faculty; Manuela had just got off for her lunch break, and she always stayed away from her room when she wasn't teaching a class. That gave them plenty of time to set up exactly what they needed - more than enough time, even.

That was, Byleth thought it was more than enough time until she reached the entrance to the building. In front of the doorway stood a figure Byleth recognised - Claude's aforementioned boyfriend, Dimitri, carrying a huge and heavy-looking box. It was wider than him, reaching above his head from the way he carried it, and Byleth looked on in disbelief as Claude sauntered up to him as if he knew Dimitri was going to be there all along.

"Heya, Dima," he said. "Ready to lend a hand?"

Dimitri turned around, shooting Byleth and Claude a blinding smile. "Of course!" he said. "When Claude mentioned to me that you were setting up a surprise for Professor Manuela, I couldn't do anything but offer to help you with the heavy lifting."

"Heavy lifting, Claude?" Byleth asked, hoping Dimitri wouldn't be bothered by the sheer disbelief in her voice.

"Heavy lifting," Claude confirmed, a knowing grin on his face. Suddenly, their conversation from earlier made a whole lot more sense. "Though he can't do it on his own; we have to guide him up the stairs, or he'll bump into something. Or someone."

Byleth nodded, keeping her reservations to herself as she joined Claude in front of Dimitri, giving him verbal instructions to get the box through the door and up several sets of stairs before they reached the corridor Manuela's classroom was on.

It was a very, very good thing that they didn't have to go through the same song and dance for Manuela that they did for Hanneman - unlike with Byleth, Manuela  _ did  _ know Claude (thanks to the way he constantly loitered in the education faculty study space, supposedly because the 'light was good' but probably because Dimitri used to hang out there a lot), and she wouldn't be fooled by his sweet talking.

Fortunately, Manuela liked taking long breaks for lunch. She'd usually be late to the class starting after, even, which gave them a generous chunk of time to get everything set up.

First, Byleth started unfolding all the things they'd made to set up in here. She wasn't much of an artist and neither was Claude, but he must have called in a favour or two from someone who  _ could  _ paint, because the design on their makeshift set pieces wasn't bad at all. Then, they moved the chairs and tables around, pushing everything that would obstruct the room to the sides and arranging all the chairs to face the front of the classroom.

Byleth left setting up the stage area to Claude, and then tasked Dimitri (despite her suspicion over why he'd been invited, Byleth was now greatly appreciative of his long limbs) with fixing little filters over the classroom's lights. When she went over to turn them on, the whole room was bathed in a soft pink glow; perfect.

"Starting to look good," Claude said, shooting Byleth a thumbs up as she moved on to arguably the most difficult part of the Manuela half of their scheme: 'hacking' into Manuela's computer.

It was a simple enough problem; they just had to work out what her password was. Byleth had hoped that she would have left it on a note next to her computer, but no such luck. She'd just have to guess it. First, she tried something obvious - the title of Manuela's favourite opera. No luck, so she moved onto the next most obvious thing: 'MachiavelliSux'.

The screen and projector lit up with Manuela's background, a poorly formatted meme about the trials of educating early years students. Claude grinned at her, and Byleth smiled back, bringing up the pre-chosen background to complete the scene for the opera.

Everything now complete, Byleth surveyed their work with a note of satisfaction. The stage was set, so to speak, and they'd finished with plenty of time to spare. Whether Manuela would find it flattering or confusing was yet to be seen, but it would undeniably leave an impression. Their mission was a success.

Byleth had barely more than a moment to wonder if Hanneman had seen the chaos wrought in his office yet, as before she even moved to take a picture of their hard work, Claude spoke up again.

"Okay, Dimitri," Claude said, shooting Byleth a sly grin. Oh no. "It's time for the big reveal." Dimitri's face lit up, and he strode over to the box he'd lifted up the stairs, carefully undoing it and revealing the object hidden within.

Byleth's mouth dropped open. She looked at Claude, whose smile was  _ ecstatic.  _ She looked at Dimitri, whose hands curled, clearly in embarrassment, around the edge of the piano. The  _ piano,  _ which he'd carried all the way up two flights of stairs. A piano, which explained exactly why Claude looked so pleased with himself.

"You got Manuela a piano," she said, when she finally felt like words weren't beyond her.

"Well, technically we have to return it," Claude said with a chuckle, "because I don't know if the music practise room is expecting it to be gone? But it's fine."

"The shit goes on you if you get in trouble for this," she warned, ignoring Dimitri's concerned look. She already knew what Claude's response would be.

"I won't!" Claude answered cheerily. "It'll be just fine. You'll see."

She had to trust him on that one, because they'd already come this far. While they'd had plenty of time to do the setup, Byleth couldn't imagine being able to help Dimitri get the piano all the way back to the music faculty before her next class started. So, in the end, she let it be, leaving the classroom after one last glance around their hard work before she closed the door. She'd be back soon - but not soon enough to arouse suspicion about who had put everything there.

When Manuela  _ did  _ arrive at the lesson, late as always, she spluttered at the sight of everything that had been set up. One of Byleth's classmates played the piano, and eventually they managed to persuade Manuela to give them a short rendition of something. She smiled all the way through her performance.

"Now," she said, crossing her arms over her chest as the final bar of the song came to a close. "Is anyone going to tell me who did all of this?"

Silence. Manuela's eyes roamed over the class, and Byleth held her breath, but she didn't seem to figure it out. "Of course," she said. "Though I'll have you know that I'm aware that this was a coordinated effort."

Byleth was, fortunately, rather good at hiding a smile, keeping her face cautiously neutral. She hadn't realised that the incidents would be linked this quickly, but she supposed it was no surprise. "I spoke to my fuddy duddy old colleague Hanneman during my lunch break today, and he said that half his office was turned upside down by an infestation of his boring theorist!" Manuela laughed, moving over to her computer to bring up the content they were actually meant to study that day.

"Though I did hear something else interesting from him today!" Manuela said. "Honestly, I thought he was imagining things - surely his memory can't be good, as old as he is, but he said that one of  _ you  _ went to go and see him today, talking about how you wanted to take one of his classes. With all due respect, I don't think any of you need to do that; none of you have any credits left to get in that area, and-"

That was when Manuela's eyes locked with Byleth's, and understanding dawned on her face. She smiled, and Byleth smiled back. "Ah, I believe I understand now," she said with a laugh. "It must have been a trick of his imagination, really."

As she spoke, she tapped the side of her nose, her eyes still fixed on Byleth's. The secret was safe with her, and the scheme was officially a success.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! :) if you enjoyed, please consider leaving a comment/kudos. I also have a twitter over @samariumwriting where I talk about fic and other stuff.


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